I remain convinced that statehood is the only adequate solution. At the same time I think I'm going to be pleased when Puerto Ricans (hopefully) start moving to the mainland and changing its politics. It seems in some small way like karma, a thing we've had far too little of in these past few years.

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“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith

“If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.” -Mikhail Bakunin

I think independence would in the long run also be better than the status quo.

Their own monetary policy, control of their own debt, no more Jones Act and so forth would be positive changes. It could also open up some possibilities with Spain and other parts of Latin America that aren't possible without control of their own foreign policy, perhaps.

However, they are much closer to a majority for statehood than for independence, and statehood has some significant advantages. And the large number of Puerto Ricans on the mainland and the ability to move to and from the mainland without impediment is a big advantage.

They'd have to potentially give up their national teams, or seek special accommodation, in competitions like the Olympics and such.

Either some assholes got really brave to do this so blatantly, or got really stupid, or this is a test to see just how much bullshit they can get away with.

That totally not sketch at all 2 employee contracting firm in Montana getting the huge contract is just the tip of the iceberg. Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz is taking them to task, including that they may have lied about FEMA's oking the contract, as FEMA has said it most certainly did not.Carmen YulĂ*n Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) | Twitter

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke assured President Trump on Friday that he had "no role" in Puerto Rico’s controversial decision to sign a $300 million electric utility repair contract with a small company based in Zinke’s hometown, according to the White House.

- Shortly after the hurricane, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority awards a $300 million no-bid contract for electric power distribution system repair to a company that might as well be called Two Dudes from Montana, since the company has only two full time employees.

- The CEO of Two Dudes from Montana is buds with Trump's Secretary of the Interior. But that had nothing to do with the $300 million no-bid contract. No, sir. Nothing at all.

- The CEO's wife, a full-time nurse practitioner, is listed as a manager of Two Dudes. That resulted in Two Dudes receiving "economically disadvantaged woman-owned small business" status in connection with an Energy Department contract it won in back in July for a transmission line repair in Arizona.

- Faced with increasingly negative coverage over the buffoonish incompetence with which the agency is doing its job, PREPA cancels the $300 million no-bid contract with Two Dudes.

- As of yesterday morning, over seven weeks after the goddamn hurricane, electric power capacity was up to a whopping 43%.

- But then a major component of the system failed, dropping capacity back to 18%.

- Two Dudes repaired the component that failed.

- However, the work of Two Dudes had nothing whatsoever to do with the failure. No, sir. Nothing at all.

__________________"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis

I think it's his show's best segment to date, and it's also making me think I could get behind a Mayor Cruz candidacy in 2020. She's obviously a very capable, eloquent woman and there would be a nice poetic justice in seeing her hand Trump his ass. Of course, there are large number of people for whom that'd be poetic justice, but I think it'd be particularly satisfying in her case because of how fucked up things have been for Puerto Rico for so long.

__________________

“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith

“If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.” -Mikhail Bakunin